


CHERRY BOMB

by elisu



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Slice of Life, cherry picking, hyejoo has a high ponytail in this and that is very important
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26279425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elisu/pseuds/elisu
Summary: Girlfriends go cherry picking. That's easy enough, right?
Relationships: Park Chaewon | Go Won/Son Hyejoo | Olivia Hye
Comments: 13
Kudos: 49
Collections: 姐妹 exchange!!





	CHERRY BOMB

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dimsum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimsum/gifts).



> happy birthday to my beloved jiejie HUI! last night i wanted to remix * as an additional (and undoubtedly better) gift but alas... i was unable to do so. i hope dumb lesbians part two is able to make your day a little better <3 i was very shook when i discovered that koreatown galleria is in fact a real place.
> 
> cw: food, choking, mentions of death, quite clearly unbeta-ed writing

“So this is some character development,” Jinsol says as she scrubs down the already-clean counter. It’s nearing closing time, and their boss had called earlier to say that they were going to pay them a visit. Business has been on the slower side, and the impending fear of being caught looking like they’re slacking off hangs thick like the untouched batch of condensed milk in the fridge. 

  
  


Chaewon tears off some paper towel from the roll hanging above the sink and wipes at a bowl from the drying rack. She rolls her eyes, then smiles at her feet. “I guess you could say that.” 

  
  


Jinsol coos at her uncharacteristic tenderness and teasingly clutches at her chest, to which Chaewon responds by scrunching up the sheet of paper towel and piffing it in the direction of her head. It misses, as expected, and falls lamely on the ground next to them, leaving them both in fits of giggles. 

  
  


It’s at that moment that the in-store telephone rings, and the primal sense of fear hits her like a truck. Her head doesn’t stop pulsing, even when the voice on the other side of the line reveals itself to be her boss telling her that they would  _ not _ be visiting today, after all. Yes, it’s been eight months since she first got this job. Yes, she had another, admittedly  _ exponentially _ scarier one working at the kpop store downstairs. But the anxiety brought by having to take phone calls from potentially glitchy strangers at work? Unmatched. Maybe it’s the stress of having to take orders when you might not be able to hear the other person properly and have to… Chaewon would shudder at the thought…  _ ask them to repeat themselves _ . She swore the first time this happened that she would never financially recover from this and here she is, still having not financially recovered from this. “You’ll get used to it after a while,” Jinsol had assured her when she’d first started work at the bingsu place in the food court.  _ (Nope) _ .

  
  


“You should just get me to answer the phone if you always get so scared,” Jinsol says, after she very carefully places it back on the register. “It’s not like I won’t do it.” 

  
  


But before Chaewon can open her mouth to reply, the phone rings once again, and by instinct she rushes to grab it immediately. “Hello, Jung’s Bingsu! How can I help you?” She says, in her crunchy-clean service worker voice. Jinsol shakes her head before going back to scrubbing at nothing. 

  
  


“Your work voice is cute, Chaewon,” a familiar voice pipes from the other end of the line, and Chaewon cries of relief a little, internally. No scary inaudible customers today, satan. 

  
  


“Hi Hyejoo,” she responds. “What’s up?”

  
  


At the mention of Chaewon’s girlfriend’s name, Jinsol pokes her head around the corner and smirks. 

  
  


Chaewon sticks her tongue out and turns the other way. 

  
  


“I just called to say I’m bringing you dinner today. Oh, and I’ve messaged your parents- and Mark, just to tell them, and they said it was okay.” 

  
  


Hearing this she thinks she really might cry, then and there. “Oh my gosh Hyejoo I-,” 

  
  


“Thank me later, sweets.”  _ Sweets? Hyejoo wants her dead.  _ “Your shift ends at seven, right?” 

“Mhm. Hyejoo you really don’t have to…”

  
  


“Nope! I do. See you at seven!”

  
  


“See you.”

  
  


She puts down the phone for the second time, and very reluctantly turns around to face Jinsol’s signature Suggestive look. Gross. “Stop it,” Chaewon whines. 

  
  


“You’re blushing!”

  
  


“Am not,” she huffs, ears heating up. And because Chaewon has little to no control over her brain and the stupid things it makes her do-  _ or say _ , she adds, “Hyejoo’s bringing me dinner.” 

  
  


_ Fool. _ Now she’s really blushing. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


In the time between then and seven o-clock, two customers and one person asking for a plastic spoon visit the stall, but work is otherwise idle. Normally Chaewon would feel a sense of relief at this but considering how Jinsol’s taken it as an opportunity to bother her about Hyejoo, she’s just about praying for the time to pass quicker. 

  
  


‘You never ended up telling me where you two are going for your date,” Jinsol says, batting her eyelashes and leaning against the plastic broom handle. “Unless this is your date… having dinner at the Galleria food court…”

  
  


“Nope!” Chaewon says, a little prouder than she’d like to admit. “We’re going cherry picking."

  
  


"Cherry picking! My goodness that is so…"

  
  


"Lesbian?"

  
  


Jinsol chokes on a laugh, before saying, "Well, yes, but I meant to say— that's so cottagecore of you. Are you going to wear hair ribbons and a milkmaid dress, too?"

  
  


In the name of self-preservation Chaewon suppresses all thoughts of Hyejoo in a flowy white dress. Maybe frolicking in-and-out of the long rows of cherry trees. Oh, and maybe she's carrying a straw basket too and wiping a cherry on her skirt to feed it to— 

  
  


"Jinsol, I'm lactose intolerant." 

  
  


She blinks. "And?"

  
  


"Ugh, nevermind. I wanted to make a joke, because milkmaid dress? Milkmaid? Milk?" 

  
  


"That one should have stayed in the drafts, I think."

  
  


"Oh, shut up."

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The rest of the night goes by like a blur, with Jinsol leaving work a little later to attend a family gathering, and Hyejoo arriving a little earlier than she'd needed to to keep Chaewon company over the front counter. Once the clock strikes nine, Chaewon doesn’t need to be alerted again before she takes off her apron, shuts the fridge doors and takes her backpack out from inside her pigeonhole. 

  
  


Arms. Hyejoo has them. Two of them, because God knows that what Chaewon deserves in this lifetime is nothing but eternal suffering and maybe some kisses. She gets both when she’s locking up the main door and feels Hyejoo wrap her up in a hug from behind, leaning her face in the back of her head. It’s violently cute, and Chaewon has to actively stop herself from cooing out loud. 

  
  


“I’m so excited for tomorrow,” Hyejoo mumbles into her hair as she pockets the keys and the two of them make their way to a table in the food court, Hyejoo’s arms still slung around Chaewon’s neck. “I am too,” Chaewon replies through a wide smile. When they’re seated, Hyejoo takes out two identical thermos containers from her backpack and places them on the table in front of them. Chaewon nearly tears up when she sees that her girlfriend has even brought two sets of reusable chopsticks in little plastic containers. 

  
  


“Hyejoo?” Chaewon says, looking her straight in the eye. 

“Mhm?”

“I want you to marry me.”

Hyejoo giggles. “Right now?” 

“Yes. Right here in the food court with the tonkatsu auntie watching and the slightly sticky tables and…” Chaewon rummages around in her backpack on the seat next to hers, “these can be our rings.” She wraps a paper napkin around Hyejoo’s fingers. 

Hyejoo pats her on the head from across the table. “Maybe another day. Let’s eat now.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They get a lift from Mark the next day, despite Chaewon’s protests and insisting that they would be perfectly okay taking a bus up to the orchard. Hyejoo doesn’t seem to mind— tells Chaewon that without having to pay a bus fare both ways, the two of them can spend more money on cherries. She’s got a point. 

  
  


The moment they pull up outside Hyejoo’s driveway, Chaewon doesn’t know why she feels the way she does. Her palms start to get clammy and she fiddles with her fingers a little more than usual. Mark looks over from the driver’s seat, smiling, and gives her hand a squeeze.  _ “You’ll be fine,” _ he mouths, although it’s only the two of them in the car.  _ Not for long _ . 

  
  


In the moments that Chaewon’s standing on the front porch, she attempts to collect herself from her current state. Deep breaths in, out, in, out— and then the door opens. And Hyejoo is wearing a dress. Unprovoked! She’s wearing a dress without any warning! And all of Chaewon’s inner peace goes out of the window because… Hyejoo is wearing a dress unprovoked and it’s white, too, and she has her hair up in the prettiest high ponytail and is that a hair ribbon? Heck— Hyejoo is wearing not only a white dress, unprovoked, but she also has her hair tied up with a yellow ribbon. 

  
  


Chaewon wants to propose to Hyejoo (again), right then and there, and tell her that she’s the prettiest most beautiful girl she’s ever respectfully laid her eyes on. What comes out of her mouth, though, is, “I think I’m gonna die.”

  
  


And Hyejoo, with her yellow ribbon ponytail and unprovoked white dress, just laughs and puts on her converse high-tops “Maybe afterwards, hmm? I want to eat cherries.” 

  
  


It is to be noted, here, that Hyejoo’s shoes are yellow— the same shade as her honey-coloured hair ribbon. Chaewon is going to combust. 

  
  


“You look nice,” Hyejoo says, gesturing towards Chaewon’s collared shirt and black overalls as the two of them walk down the driveway. (If Chaewon’s thinking about how this could be a metaphor for a wedding aisle, no she isn’t.) “I like your outfit.”

  
  


Chaewon blushes aggressively. “I like yours, too. The...” she gestures vaguely, “hair ribbon. It’s very nice.”

  
  
  
  


Mark opens his mouth to say something when he catches a glimpse of their held hands in the backseat in the rearview mirror, but then sees look that Chaewon’s shooting him—  _ daggers _ , and shuts it immediately, a knowing smile plastering itself across his face and making itself a home there. 

  
  


Hyejoo drums her feet softly to the beat of the song, and Mark hums the tune. And Chaewon? She just drinks it all in. There’s something precious in the little conversations the three of them have here and there, and the comfortable silence that settles in between. Chaewon listens to the lyrics Mark sings to.  _ “I know if I die, I’ll go happy tonight.”  _ is a line that she can’t seem to let go of. She likes to joke about dying a lot, but this is the first time she thinks about it for real. There’s no telling when it’ll happen, and the idea both scares and comforts her, simultaneously. It’s strange, but Chaewon would like to think that this is a reminder of how good she has it. If this moment happens to be her last? Well, at least she has Hyejoo’s hand to hold. 

  
  


“What’re you thinking about?” Hyejoo turns her gaze from the window to Chaewon. “You look kind of emo right now.”

“Me, the emo one? You’re the gamer here.”

“And what about it?”

“She’s pretty good,” Mark chimes in, as the song changes to an upbeat summer track Chaewon doesn’t know the name of. 

  
  


“Oh!” Hyejoo exclaims then, suddenly, and the three of them are quickly distracted by the sight of the oversized red sign. “We’ve arrived!”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


“Pinky promise me you won’t eat too many cherries and get sick like you did with the red bean.” Chaewon says, as they’ve got their tickets and collected plastic buckets from the front counter. 

Hyejoo scowls. “Don’t remind me. The thought of it still makes my tummy do a thing.”

  
  


The two of them devise a master plan for cherry picking-- they’ll split up between the rows of trees and then meet back in the middle at eleven (for optimal efficiency). And then they’ll eat and go back to pick again. 

  
  


Chaewon peeks at Hyejoo through leaves. She looks nice, and Chaewon can’t seem to tear her eyes away from how cute she looks, determinedly reaching at the branches for cherries like a squirrel with important work to do. Hyejoo turns around and sees Chaewon hiding behind the tree and marches up to her, hands on hips. “Our master plan, Chae?”

  
  


Her bucket is nearly half full by now, whereas Chaewon’s has all of ten cherries inside. Chaewon has no excuse, just picks a particularly shiny one from Hyejoo’s bucket and pops it in her mouth with a smile. “Sharing is caring,” she says, with her mouth still full. 

  
  


“Would you care to share a kiss with me, then?” Hyejoo walks closer. Plants one on Chaewon’s mouth without a reply. 

  
  


Chaewon gulps, and nearly chokes on the pit. She bends over frantically to cough it out. Hyejoo, just realising what’s happened, pats her back as if it’s helping in any way. 

  
  


“Hyejoo Son,” she pants when the pit in question is out of her throat and safely on the floor, face heating up and heart thumping violently from the near-death encounter. “You want me dead.” 

  
  


“I am _so_ sorry," Hyejoo says, not looking very apologetic at all. "Would you like another kiss to make it better?”

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/dreamscng)


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